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by Brent Kellogg
See photos  Photos of Gail
Music that got Brent beyond the worst of grief and keeps his head clear today.

NOTE: There's a new photo of old man time available.

WEDNESDAY, November 18, 2009 -- Couple of updates, in the item here yesterday about a provision in a Senate bill that would allow veterans deemed "mentally defective" to buy guns, the bill was authored by a Republican, but it was brought to my attention the bill was co-authored by a Democrat, so there you go. Dems, Repugs, hard to tell them apart these days.

The other update pertains to an item here yesterday about drugs claiming to reduce cholesterol levels which millions still take despite reports that the drugs are bad, there's a vitamin that will reduce cholesterol and it's relatively cheap and safe. It's called Niacin. So says Dr. Anthony DeMaria, a leading cardiologist who is also the editor in chief of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. He was referring to the results of a study that compared niacin to Zetia.

The niacin referred to is a prescription product that has a special timed-release formulation, which may cut down on the "hot flashes" associated with niacin use. Not everyone gets the flushing though, so if you're in need of getting your bad cholesterol level down pop some niacin. Oh, and remember, I am not a medical doctor. I just play one on the Internet.

By the way, patients taking Zetia have had heart attacks, stroke, or died from heart disease. But then you should know that almost every drug you see coming from Big Pharma can kill you - and they even tell you this. Truly amazing then that so many keep swilling these pills - is it not? They might as well drink lighter fluid. Oh wait, they already do. It's called soda pop.

Surprised?

Statements by lawmakers pertaining to propose health care were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world's largest biotechnology companies, and a subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche. Genentech estimates that 42 House members picked up some of its talking points - 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats.

...

Now that so many have profited so much, the swine flu virus isn't such a big deal after all. Assuming it exists at all, Bjoern Peters, an assistant member of the division of vaccine discovery at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology in La Jolla, CA., says, "What has been widely reported in the general press is that the swine flu is totally new, so there is no immunity to it. But the severity of infections that have been seen is not greater than usually seen in seasonal flu."

Are you as F-ing shocked as I am?

Then how about this?

A new report on the bank bailout of AIG confirms that Tim Geithner and the Federal Reserve Bank bent over backwards as they gave away billions in overpayments to Wall Street firms because they asked for it. Rather than bargain with AIG creditors like Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, Geithner let them have their way with him and got top dollar - your dollars - for their worthless assets.

...

As someone with TMJ, I hope this doesn't make it to the USA.

A chain of private dental practices in Britain is testing a device which delivers a tiny electrical impulse when it detects grinding is about to begin. Teeth grinding - or bruxism - is a common and usually harmless habit induced by stress.

Harmless? My ass! When bruxism becomes full blown TMJ it's the most painful thing you could imagine.

Bruxism causes headaches and stiff neck. Traditional treatments involve wearing a plastic device at night which prevents the top and bottom teeth from hitting. With the new device, Grindcare, developed in Denmark, a small electrode is placed on the temple which then monitors the movement of facial muscles. When it detects tension mounting, it delivers a tiny electrical shock. The device is said to reduce grinding by as much as 80% within two months. No word on the cost, you can bet it ain't cheap.

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I'm not seeing that there's a problem - yet - but since I drink bottled water this caught my eye:

Men in China who got very high doses of BPA - a chemical widely used in hard plastic bottles - had high rates of sexual problems. BPA has been linked to impotence and lower sexual desire and satisfaction. Let's see. No impotence, check. No lowered desire, check. Satisfaction. Oh-oh. What does that mean? Ability to reach orgasm? Okay then, check. Guess I'm okay.

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Funny headline: Retailer of the Year: Jeff Noddle.

Okay, so when my tired eyes first saw the last name I thought it was Noodle. Close enough for a laugh, no?

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Anything that calls itself a society for cancer should cause some skepticism, but cancer experts are expressing increasing concern over the explosion of campaigns urging people to get screened for a wide variety of cancers, warning that such programs may do more harm than good.

"It is a real problem," said Otis W. Brawley of the American Cancer Society. "They are doing things that might actually harm the people they want to help."

Unless there are specific risk factors, like a history of smoking or family history of a certain kind of cancer, or symptoms like a lump, there is no evidence that routine cancer screening reduces death rates. There are only three exceptions to the rule: Women should get regular pap smears starting at age 21 and mammograms starting at age 40, er, check that. Mammograms at age 50. You see the change? The longer you wait the more likely cancer will have eaten your boob clean from the inside out. Not that it matters, your age, colon cancer is another test that should start at age 50. Of these three, breast cancer screening is the weakest because frankly, cancer is hard to detect. It "moves around" my dead wife's oncologist told her, but by then it was too late to do much more than squeeze every dollar we had and then some out of us as payment for more useless might work in rare case remedies.

There are five things that can happen as a result of screening tests, and four of them are bad. The only positive result is identifying a life-threatening cancer early enough for treatment. Harmful results include detecting an aggressive cancer that will not respond to treatment no matter how early it is detected, detecting a stable or slow-growing cancer that does not require treatment, falsely detecting cancer where there is none, or failing to detect a real cancer and thus giving patients a false sense of security as symptoms begin to develop.

False positives lead to unnecessary, painful and expensive biopsies and other procedures. As we know all too well, even when cancers are real, treatment is not necessarily helpful and might hasten death.

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The other day we had "meep" as a word being censored by at least one school principal, today it's "unfriend" as the latest entry into the New Oxford American Dictionary. Unfriend is a verb meaning to remove someone as a friend. I decided to unfriend my friend. How cool is that?

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Finally, remember when my life didn't suck so much, Gail was alive and life was so good I could take Thursday's off from this page? I'm thinking it's time to go back to that schedule and as soon as tomorrow. It all depends on how busy Linda keeps me. I know, there hasn't been much on Linda here in a few days. Maybe that's what I'll do tomorrow instead of news stuff; bring you up to speed. Not sure what there is to say except that Linda is sold on me, and me on her, and I think this is - I mean it this time - the happy ending to a tragic story I was hoping for.